Mechanics help

[Supersonic Wind]

I have a system that needs help, I'm new to building RPGs.  I have an idea for a system, but I'm not quite sure about probability.
               
Aspects:  Makeup of the character (Brain, Bones, Heart, Muscle, Nerves, & Skin)
1-Okay                               
2-Sub-par   
3-Average                  
4-Good   
5-Wow...
6-Perfection                     
Qualities:   Basic skills, talents, & abilities possessed by the character.
1-Unskilled   
2-Student                               
3-Learned                  
4-Capable         
5-Great            
6-Authority         
7-Mastery
8-Peerless

Rules:
Roll Quality & Aspect (D8 & D6), the difference between the two determines degree of success.  If the numerals are higher than your ratings the action fails. The closer the numerals are together, the greater the degree of success.  Ones are failures.  The closer the numbers are to your ratings indicates degree of success.

[Autocrat]

So, if I read that right.... the higher your stat scores, the better?
  If you have Stat A as low, and Stat B as high, then you aren't ever likely to get a good degree of success?
  I don't see anything blatantly wrong with it.... yet why that mechanic?

[Jasper]

First, I like the different attributes: some good potential there, if the names arenntt merely color.  

I don't understand the mechanic though.  How is margin of success calculated?  First you say it's based on the difference between the two rolls, then that it gets higher if they're close together, and finally that its higher when the rolls are close to the ratings.  Which is it?  Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem very clear from your post.

If the first mechanism, this is a little weird, as Autocrat points out: it'd be in your best itnerest to use a low aspect and a high quality, or vice-versa.  On the other hand, this could be kind of neat: forcing a character to pair up a strength with a weakness.  Probably not what you were thinkig of though.

Why do you need two different ways to fail, i.e. rolling of 1s and rolling higher than your ratings?

[Supersonic Wind]

I was looking to make a system that combined the simplicity of the Feng Shui system with the freedom in character creation of a White Wolf game.  Another thing I wanted to do was reap a multitude of information from a single roll.  The  idea of players min-maxing their stats hadn't occured to me.

Aspects:
Brain:   Intelligence & common sense
Bone:   Withstanding physical distress & heavy damage protection
Muscle:   Strength & medium damage protection
Nerves:   Reaction time, pain resistance & stress endurance
Skin:   Superficial appearances & light damage protection
Heart:   Endurance & emotional strength

[Jasper]

I think it'd be helpful if you could provide an actual example of play: i.e. what you imagine play to be like for the players, including use of the mechanic, since I still don't understand your description of it.  

What specifically about White Wolf's system do you see as providing freedom?

[Supersonic Wind]

To tell you the truth, I'm don't entirely understand it myself.  I have this inkling in my head, but I'm notable to fully express it.  I'll give it a try though, basically, a combat roll would go like this: roll dice, difference between to two is the accuracy, the difference compared to your ratings indicates how much damage you do.

Recently, I had the idea for success to determined  by trying to get the difference between the dice under your ratings.

I like White Wolf's character system because they give you points to distribute amongst your Attributes & Abilites, plus freebie points to further customize your char.  Your Attributes aren't affected by whatever "race" you select and there aren't any "classes" to inhibit which & what Abilites you choose.

[Jasper]

I see, thanks for the clarification.  An easier way to explain the calculation of, in this case damage, would be to say "the higher the rolls, the greater the damage" -- since higher implies closeness to the ratings.  A potential problem with this system is that the two "outputs" of damage and accuracy (or whatever they may be) aren't independant.  You can't have both really good damage and really good accuracy.  This may be okay with you, it just depends on what you want.  See what I mean:

If we take a character with middle-range ratings of 3 and 3 who is firing a gun, there are several possible outcomes.  The most damage he can get is 6, if he rolls two 3s, but his accuracy is 0 then.  Alternately, the highest accuracy he can get is from rolling 1 and 3, in which case it is 2, with damage 4.  A third possibility is that he rolls 1 and 1: this is odd because he does very little damage (2) and also has no accuracy, even though he has ostensibly succeeded by rolling under his ratings.

So you do get information out of this system, but some of it is the same.  Depending on how you handle damage, accuracy and successes in general, it could work fine -- but beware that it is idiosyncratic.  Let's see more of a system around it, and we can comment more on how it might work -- if that's what you want.  I'm curious to see what you do.